Part 32 (2/2)

Something in the tone and manner of his allusion to her son's country-house seemed to have offended her. She interposed sharply and decisively.

”Gently, my friend, gently!” she said. ”I don't think you quite know what you are talking about.”

His great blue eyes flashed at her fiercely. With one turn of his hand he brought his chair close at her side. The next instant he caught her by the arm, and forced her to bend to him, until he could whisper in her ear. He was violently agitated. His whisper was loud enough to make itself heard where I was sitting at the time.

”I don't know what I am talking about?” he repeated, with his eyes fixed attentively, not on my mother-in-law, but on me. ”You shortsighted old woman! where are your spectacles? Look at her! Do you see no resemblance--the figure, not the face!--do you see no resemblance there to Eustace's first wife?”

”Pure fancy!” rejoined Mrs. Macallan. ”I see nothing of the sort.”

He shook her impatiently.

”Not so loud!” he whispered. ”She will hear you.”

”I have heard you both,” I said. ”You need have no fear, Mr. Dexter, of speaking before me. I know that my husband had a first wife, and I know how miserably she died. I have read the Trial.”

”You have read the life and death of a martyr!” cried Miserrimus Dexter.

He suddenly wheeled his chair my way; he bent over me; his eyes filled with tears. ”n.o.body appreciated her at her true value,” he said, ”but me. n.o.body but me! n.o.body but me!”

Mrs. Macallan walked away impatiently to the end of the room.

”When you are ready, Valeria, I am,” she said. ”We cannot keep the servants and the horses waiting much longer in this bleak place.”

I was too deeply interested in leading Miserrimus Dexter to pursue the subject on which he had touched to be willing to leave him at that moment. I pretended not to have heard Mrs. Macallan. I laid my hand, as if by accident, on the wheel-chair to keep him near me.

”You showed me how highly you esteemed that poor lady in your evidence at the Trial,” I said. ”I believe, Mr. Dexter, you have ideas of your own about the mystery of her death?”

He had been looking at my hand, resting on the arm of his chair, until I ventured on my question. At that he suddenly raised his eyes, and fixed them with a frowning and furtive suspicion on my face.

”How do you know I have ideas of my own?” he asked, sternly.

”I know it from reading the Trial,” I answered. ”The lawyer who cross-examined you spoke almost in the very words which I have just used. I had no intention of offending you, Mr. Dexter.”

His face cleared as rapidly as it had clouded. He smiled, and laid his hand on mine. His touch struck me cold. I felt every nerve in me s.h.i.+vering under it; I drew my hand away quickly.

”I beg your pardon,” he said, ”if I have misunderstood you. I _have_ ideas of my own about that unhappy lady.” He paused and looked at me in silence very earnestly. ”Have _you_ any ideas?” he asked. ”Ideas about her life? or about her death?”

I was deeply interested; I was burning to hear more. It might encourage him to speak if I were candid with him. I answered, ”Yes.”

”Ideas which you have mentioned to any one?” he went on.

”To no living creature,” I replied--”as yet.”

”This very strange!” he said, still earnestly reading my face. ”What interest can _you_ have in a dead woman whom you never knew? Why did you ask me that question just now? Have you any motive in coming here to see me?”

I boldly acknowledged the truth. I said, ”I have a motive.”

”Is it connected with Eustace Macallan's first wife?”

”It is.”

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